


Stumbling Boy

by godcomplexfics (godtiercomplex)



Series: dysfunctional family funtimes [18]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Coming of Age, F/F, Gen, M/M, Sibling Rivalry, adoption does not work like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 08:13:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9712892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtiercomplex/pseuds/godcomplexfics
Summary: Shirazu Ginshi stumbles through life to most people.In which; Urie is gone, Haise is stress baking, and Ginshi just wants to find his place in the world.(Reposted due to Ao3 mishaps)





	

Ginshi didn’t want to be in high school. He also didn’t want to end up like his father, so he kept on going. High school and attending classes was the bare minimum of what Sasaki and Arima asked of all of them, so it was the least he could do. He’d been on the road to trouble, but Juuzou had seen that that had been put to a quick end. He still visited Juuzou in his police box, and ran errands for him. He still fought constantly with his siblings, but that was expected--Sasaki expected it at least. He still didn’t care much for Tsukiyama, but he knew a losing battle when he saw one.

So he just drifted through his days, without a purpose like Saiko had, and without a real enemy to fight. The age of the ronin was long over, and Ginshi was lost. He had been born in the wrong century, he was sure of it. He said as much to Juuzou, and the older man stopped sharpening his knives, and just stared at him.

“Do you believe in reincarnation then, Shirazu?” he asked, “I would have taken you for a much more realistic type than that.”

“You don’t?”

“The day Shirazu’s realistic is the day I get a below a ninety percent,” Urie said from where he was typing in parking violations into the computer.

“Hey,” Ginshi said, “Fuck off.”

“But, _Age of the Samurai,_ ” Urie said, “How romantic can you get?”

“Again, fuck off,” Ginshi said.

“Simmer down, boys,” Juuzou said, “Or do I need to make you go out on patrol?”

“Seriously, shouldn’t you be doing that?” Urie asked.

Juuzou shrugged, “Haven’t gotten any complaints about it, so we’re good. Besides, Haise sent over this loaf and I haven’t even touched it yet.”

Said loaf was sitting in the middle of his office, and was almost still warm in the cool February air.

“Alright, we’ll go on patrol. Gotta keep the neighborhood safe, after all,” Ginshi said, “Let’s go, Urie.”

Urie sighed, and got up, mumbling underneath his breath as he was prone to. They fought as usual, but soon finished the rounds. There was nothing wrong.

After that day, that was one of the last days he would see Urie for a long time.

 

xxx

 

It made no sense, his brother just stopped coming over suddenly one day after a massive fight. By the time a week had passed, he realized what was going on. He tried talking to Sasaki about it, but Sasaki just wanly smiled, and said, “He has to make his own choices.”

He didn’t know what to do. He tried texting Urie, but the boy never responded, so he stopped. Calls didn’t go through either. And, he realized as time passed, that he didn’t even know where Urie really lived. And the adults were silent on the matter, so he gave up.

It felt like losing something important to him.

 

xxx

 

He was walking with Tooru and Saiko after school one day when he noticed a new place opening up.

“Oh,” he said, and his siblings indulged him by coming with him when he crossed the street to see. It was a car shop, and it was beautiful. The owner himself greeted them.

Ginshi fell in love with it, he took to spending time there after school, and soon Saiko and Tooru stopped waiting for him. They just kept walking, and he just kept staying later and later.

“Boy,” the owner said, “If you keep hanging around here, soon I’ll have to put you to work.”

“Please put me to work, sir,” Ginshi said. The owner considered it, and then agreed, but only if he got his parents’ permission.

So he told Sassan what had happened. After his explanation, Sasaki just looked at him and nodded, saying, “If doing that will make you happy, then that’s fine by me. I’ll write up a note for the man.”

“Thank you,” Ginshi said. “Thanks, Sassan.”

 

xxx

 

“Ah, so you’ve been working here all this time?” Juuzou had come in with a misaligned wheel on his motorcycle. “It’s been quiet around the box with both you and Urie gone.”

Ginshi tensed from where he was taking down the details for Juuzou’s repair as his boss examined it. “Yeah, well, this job pays.”

“True, better to find this type of work than working for free,” Juuzou said, “I think the engine needs to get looked at too if I’m not mistaken.”

“What happened to this bike?” His boss asked.

“I had a bit of a crash last week. I managed to walk away from it, can’t say the same for Rei.”

“Rei?” Ginshi asked.

“The bike.”

“Ah,” Ginshi wrote that down.

Before he left, Juuzou patted Ginshi’s head, “Take care of my baby.”

xxx

 

A man named Uta came in with another bike, and by that time Ginshi had learned a lot about repairing bikes. He fixed it up as his boss and Uta talked shop.

“I hear you’re good with painting,” Uta said, “Mind giving him a new paint job for me?”

“If Tomoto-san okays it,” Ginshi said.

“He okays it,” Uta said. He had a scary looking face, with pure black eyes, and tattoos visible all along his body.

He painted the bike in shades of black and blue, with shades of red as accents. It looked beautiful, he thought privately, when he was done.

 

xxx

 

“Do you plan on making a career out of that?” Tsukiyama asked during dinner after Sasaki had asked how he was getting along at the shop. He tensed at the, to him, judging tone.

“And so what if I am?”

“I think it’s okay,” Sasaki said, “To be doing what you love is something that all people should try to do, isn’t it?”

Shittyama seemed to think that over for a long time, and Ginshi sighed in relief.

“Yeah, I love it, I think I wanna do it for a long time. There’s nothing like putting a car back together again, or fixing up someone’s bike for them and seeing their smiling face.”

“That’s why I’m a YouTuber!” Saiko announced, “It makes me happy, and it makes other girls happy, and that’s what matters most to me.”

“Hmm,” Tooru said, “I don’t know if I have anything like that yet.”

“You’ll find it,” Sasaki said, “You all will find that something that’s important to you.”

Ginshi wondered if Urie had, or was still looking. And then he berated himself for thinking about that traitor at a time like this. Because that’s what Urie was in the end, wasn’t it? He hadn’t come home in months; he had chosen his birth family over them. He was, in all facts, a traitor.

“Why are you all frowned up?” Tooru asked as he cleared the table.

“Have you heard from Urie?” he asked as Sasaki and Tsukiyama moved to the kitchen and Saiko moved to the living room. Tooru sat back down and shook his head.

“No, I haven’t, not at all. Are you missing him?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not, but it’s okay if you are missing him. I even miss him!” Tooru admitted with a laugh, “He is our brother after all.”

 

xxx

 

Ginshi held on to that. It was a fact that they were brothers. It was a fact, and would always be.

He had his brothers, and he had his sister. He had Sasaki, Arima, and Akira. Hell, he even had Tsukiyama despite all his efforts to rid himself of the man. He had Hide, and Juuzou, and Hanbee. He had his boss, Tomoto. He had his friends at school, and he had so much more than he would have had prior to his adoption by Sasaki. He held on to that.

He held on to their family’s bond, and knew that it wouldn’t take much longer for Urie to come back to them. Because that was what it meant when you were family.

 

xxx

 

Tsukiyama started working as social worker, and change came to the house in small ways. Tsukiyama seemed to soften somewhat towards them, and his judgemental tone seemed to go away slowly. Kaede was the one who pointed it out to Ginshi  one night when she was waiting on Tsukiyama to get ready for their not-quite-a-date. Finding out she was a lesbian had been a real blow to Ginshi’s heart, and so his first crush had died quietly and unfulfilled.

Rize seemed to suit Kaede, in an understated way, so Ginshi allowed himself to like her.

“Do you think Sasaki would ever marry Shittyama?” he asked Rize once when they were watching Saiko play _Assassin's Creed III._ Tooru was off doing his homework, and Haise was in his study. Arima was watching Saiko, and he didn’t know where Akira was. Tsukiyama and Kaede were on another date. “Like how you and Kaede are getting married?”

Rize considered him, and he liked her because she treated them all largely like adults.

“You’d know that better than me.”

“As an outsider, what do you think?” He kept pressing her, not allowing her to dodge his question. She eventually sighed, and sipped her beer.

“If I had to guess, my answer would be ‘no’. Your dad doesn’t seem the marrying type. He and Tsukiyama’s relationship though? I think it’s secure enough without the marriage.”

“Do you think you and Kaede’s relationship is insecure then? Is that why you’re getting married?”

“We’re having a ceremony to show everyone that Kaede cares about that we’re together. Everyone that Sasaki cares about already knows about his relationship with Tsukiyama.”

Ginshi considered the truth of Rize’s words, and sighed.

“Yeah, I think you’re right too.”

“There are benefits to marriage I wouldn’t mind though,” Rize said, “But, since this time I’m marrying a woman we can’t get those and that upsets me bad.”

“What benefits?”

Rize sighed, “You should look into it. You never know, you might end up with a man in the future, and then what will you do?”

Ginshi was pretty sure that he wouldn’t, but he looked into it.

 

xxx

 

He started going back to the police box because it felt like the right thing to do.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Hanbee said. Juuzou was out on patrol.

“Yeah, well, been busy,” Ginshi said, “I just dropped by to bring some stuff that Sassan baked. He asked me to.”

“Stay awhile, I think Suzuya would like to see you.”

“Want me to run on errands more like.”

But he stayed, and when Juuzou showed up, they chatted some while the other man ate the chocolate chip cookies Sasaki had stress baked. He was struggling with his newest novel, and Ginshi wished him luck, because honestly there was only so much pie he could eat.

“Yeah, well, send all the sweets he bakes this way,” Juuzou said, “Also, the mechanic look suits you. Heading over after this?”

“Yeah, I’m an official apprentice now.”

“Won’t that long hair get in the way of the. . .” Hanbee trailed off, “stuff?”

“Stuff,” Juuzou said, “has a name. But I’m sure Shirazu has that figured out.”

“Yeah, I do,” Ginshi said, “Thanks, I’ll see you guys later.”

 

xxx

 

People thought that Ginshi tumbled through life, stumbling upon things, but he didn’t, not really. He did do some things deliberately and with care. When he was working on a car, he was able to lose himself. He threw himself into studying, and watched his understanding grow. He’d always liked fussing around with cars, but having a job that he was getting paid to do it at was different. He was different.

And to show that, to really show that he was different, that he was changed, he decided he needed to find something to change about himself physically.

So that when Urie did return, he could point at it and say, “Look, I made my own choice too!”

  


xxx

 

It was easy in the end, to decide what to do.

“Was cutting all of it really necessary?” Tooru asked, “I mean, it looks nice but. . .”

“Bald,” Saiko declared, “You’re bald now!”

“He is not,” Sasaki said, “You look very nice, Shirazu.”

“Next time,” Tsukiyama said, “I’ll give you the name of my stylist.”

“Yeah? Thanks,” Ginshi said, “Maybe I’ll go to them.”

_Just wait, Urie, you won’t be the only one with a story to tell!_

The age of the samurai might have been long over, but a little sibling rivalry was always in.


End file.
